I have zero clue what you are taking about

Sounds like an updated version of MAF

Out of curiosity what is your heart rate after an hour of running at 9:30 min/mile?

Just for more information, what is your usual open marathon/half-mar pace?

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- Jordan

My Strava

...I am not sure I have a clue either ;-)

My heart rate is around 125 (HF Max is 173)

Best,
Uli

I have no Marathon pace as a reference. My 5k time is 18.30 and I could probably run a half sub 1h30 but have no reference to that either.

What the hell is a "FatMAX"?

It is the intensity or pace where your body uses the most fat for energy production. Spending training time at fat max pace supposedly improves fat metabolism, which in turn let's you run faster for longer - so the theory.

It's not something I came up with. Feel free to ask google as well.

Uli

How are you measuring "improvement"?

I've also heard it said recently that improvements at FatMAX (or going faster at FatMAX) are 75% diet related.

This might help:

The purpose of training is to get faster. Training is a stimulus that elicits a physiological response from the body creating an adaptation that makes you get faster at the desired task, or more resistant to fatigue, ie. to perform work. Fatigue is metabolic and is both acute and chronic and everything in between. Metabolism is what your body does, for a trillion trillion cells, without any input from you or without you even knowing about it.

You're going about this completely backwards IMO. Sometimes it's just a coincidence that a prescribed work level in training is similar to any physiological marker.

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...I check paces I can hold at a certain heart rate. Usually if my fitness improves I can run faster per beat so to speak. Now with this fatmax stuff I did not improve at any pace per heartbeat...

The diet thing I have read as well and could certainly a limiter for me.

Fat metabolism is a slow energy release process. I don't know what the benefit of going slow is. You can go for a very long time, sure, but you will not go fast. It doesn't seem productive for someone who can run a 18:30 5k to spend much time at 9:30/mi.

I'll be running at FatMAX the day after Thanksgiving!

I am hoping that everyone in my age group at my next Full IM follows this same philosophy.

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- Jordan

My Strava

I am interested in this topic and in improving fat use as fuel as well, but for primarily cycling (no swimming, very little running). So I don't know how it translates across multisport, but it seems like your overall workout mix is a high number/percentage of high intensity (aka max glycogen) per week. 2 sessions of FatMax, and 3-4 of high intensity/hard/sweetspot/vo2. From what I have read (example article by Inigo San Millan), it seems that total time of Zone 2 is very important, especially now in the off/pre season.

Do you have good/decent heart rate zones for each sport? Any idea what your total time in zone per week is for the past 6 weeks while working on this?

I mean, its plenty productive to go long and slow. I run right around 16 min for a 5k but I spend plenty of time running 8-8.5 min/mile, and average paces on runs often go over 10 since I usually do a run/walk

That's great to hear, maybe I should also include walking into my routine? What do you think about slowmo running? There is a guy in San Diego who does it on linline skates and he looks fit....

Well, it seems that you literally can run that slow since you said you've been doing it for about 3 hours/week! If it actually feels *bad* or physically uncomfortable to do it, then your running form needs work. If it just feels boring and too easy, well then that is part of the point. If you are getting your heart rate up to 125 bpm for 90' you are doing meaningful aerobic development. The real plus is that this running should be really low injury risk, and it should leave your legs fresh to do hard work on the bike and run on other days.

Here are a few options to make things less boring:
1) Run with other people and converse with them at that speed. Easy runs can be more fun if they are actually social.
2) Run a little faster, but only as fast as you can go with nose-breathing only.
3) Run a little faster, but try to keep your heart rate below some fixed low threshold that maybe feels a little more palatable to you. See if your pace at a given low HR improves over another 6-week period.

Anyhow, easy running really should feel easy. It should feel like a little more than a walk in the park, but not by much. Barely breaking a sweat, not being out of breath, and keeping your HR low while moving at a decent clip should be badges of honor and not things to be annoyed about. You can always add more volume or another hard run day or make your hard running harder if your running is so easy it is leaving you bored.

Is this meaning to say your Max heart rate is 173 bpm? If yes, then 125-130 bpm should be a good target for easy runs. If it's slower than you would like, then run more miles easy. After re-reading your training it seems you are doing ~3 runs and 25-30 mpw? If you want to reap the benefits of easy running, you might need to do more of it.

Thanks for your input. Maybe I need to be a little more patient. I have never run that slow, so it just feels like not enough work....

Yes, I have never recorded more than 175 bpm and yes, I am in the 25 mpw ballpark. Running more will for sure help but not sure if I have more time to train....the usual dilemma.

If your HR is high for slow runs, then your aerobic system is being overworked to supply you the energy. I've known lots of people that say "I can't run that slow" and then they blow up in long races. When they finally let go of their ego and slow down for their long easy stuff, their HR eventually drops down to the 120-130 range and their speed at that low of an HR goes way, way up. Before I slowed down to fix my HR problem, 125 hr would be 18 mph on the bike. After, 125 hr is more like 22 mph.

Another thing to do is run at a low HR, but do it slowly uphill. This will strengthen your legs to make you faster, but you will be working on the fat burning at the same time.

Going from 18 to 22 mph is a MASSIVE improvement......so another vote to be patient.
I like to blow up in races and I don't like to be passed in training by folks who I believe are much slower than me....sounds like I am your stereotypical let go of the "Ego" guy...

So I didn’t process right away but at a VO2max of 63 ml/kg/min your 5k could be much faster if your run-specific aerobic development were better. Daniels says ~16:20... https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/

(The Daniels calculator also predicts 1:25 for a half marathon based on your 5k time.)

If you shortened some of your easy runs, could you fit in more time running per week? e.g., could you replace one of your 90-minute easy runs with four 30-minute runs during lunch or as bricks with other workouts? I think you might get more out of that even if it only bumped your mileage a little bit. Sign up for 100 in 100!

I have made tremendous improvements running slow.

I use MAF, you can use FatMAX or anything else that keeps you from running too hard.

But you must do some serious mileage for it to count.

I have read that if you have the time and are not up over 50 - 60 mpw, then you shouldn’t be doing any speed work. I subscribe to this theory.

Last year I got up to 80 - 90 mpw. No tempo or speed work, because I didn’t think I could do it and stay healthy.

When I started I was run / walking 9:30 / miles to keep my HR in range. After maybe 8 weeks I was down under 8:00 / mile and running at a pace that I used to 10 - 12 bpm higher. It works. Just before my marathon my MAF pace on a 10 mile loop that I die to measure my fitness was 7:25, over 2 minutes per mile faster than where I started.

Be patient. Use the same loops to measure your progress. It will come.

Good luck!

You are way over thinking this. Just run. Mostly run easy---talking pace. Sometimes (rarely if at all) run fast.

I just looked at my own stats for the last month. I'm in a heavy speed block. I "feel" like every run is maxed out. But, the truth is (last 28 day totals):

20% in zone 1 (9:10+)
55% in zone 2 (8:15)
4.5% in zones 3 - 5 (6:45) threshold pace
5.5% in zone 6 (6:20)
15% in zone 7 (6:00)

Parentheses are pace thresholds.

So, even though I'm spending substantial time sub-6....i spend 6x the time 3-4 mpm slower.

But last year, I spent less than 8% above z3---With essentially 0% above threshold pace.

On easy runs I usually set a hr cap around my z1/z2 boundary and do my best to stay in Z1 as long as possible. Learn what makes your hr spike and what keeps it low.

I also think that you would see substantial improvement from increased mpw. 25 mpw is pretty minimal. Another 8-10 would help a lot. That's just 2x 4mi (35 min each). And yeah.... 100/100 is very instructive for how to dissolve these little runs into the background.